Sounds from an empty gong: Time for Najin to rein in BTN

Thomas Lee

While Datuk Seri Najib Razak was urging all nations of the world to “choose moderation over extremism” to promote international peace and harmony in his maiden speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Monday 27 September 2010, it is surely shocking that back in Malaysia at about the same time, a senior civil servant spewed out one of the most extremist and venomous speeches against the Chinese and Indian communities.

Federal Territory Biro Tata Negara (BTN) deputy director Hamim Husin referred to the Chinese and Indian communities as Si Mata Sepet and Si Botol when speaking at a Puter Umno function.

“The Si Mata Sepet who has never gone to a mosque or surau only has one vote. The Si Botol who only knows how to go up and down Batu Caves only has one vote,” Hamim was quoted as saying, when talking about getting votes from the non-Malay voters.

It surely is most malevolent and seditious for the senior BTN officer to use such a contemptuous, pejorative and derogatory terms of Si Mata Sepet (slit eyes) and Si Botol (alcoholic) to describe the Chinese and Indian citizens.

The flabbergasted speech by the BTN deputy director makes our prime minister sounds like a first-class hypocrite at the United Nations!

The prime minister has urged world leaders to embark on building a “Global Movement of the Moderates” from all faiths to work together to combat and marginalise extremists, whom he said, had held the world with their bigotry and bias.

“It is time for moderates of all countries, of all religions to take back the centre, to reclaim the agenda for peace and pragmatism, and to marginalise the extremists. This Global Movement of the Moderates will save us from sinking into the abyss of despair and depravation,” Najib told the world leaders gathered at the United Nations General Assembly.

Yet, back in his own country, a senior civil servant desacralizes his fair and impartial homily on inter-racial and inter-faith relationship.

The BTN, as an agency to train and develop civil servants, should be in the forefront of preserving and promoting racial equality, harmony and peaceful co-existence among the people.

It should be educating and acculturating the civil servants to lead all races to work towards achieving the inclusive OneMalaysia policy mooted by the Prime Minister.

However, the BTN has been shown to be an extremely racist and highly divisive politically-orientated agency to promote the supremacy of one particular race, which is in direct contradiction to Najib’s inclusive OneMalaysia policy.

During the height of the controversy over the BTN in the last quarter of 2009, various former participants of the BTN courses had testified that the agency is basically geared towards the propagada and promotion of an exclusive political agenda.

For example, the Selangor Pakatan Rakyat state government in December 2009 prohibited state civil servants and students in state-owned tertiary institutions from attending the BTN courses, claiming that they were an indoctrination process by the Barisan Nasional federal government and aimed at brainwashing Malaysians to hate all those opposed to its political agenda.

Pakatan Rakyat leaders have accused the ruling Barisan Nasional federal government of using the BTN to brainwash civil servants and tertiary students to hate the opposition and asked why the BTN is not open to public and conducted in secrecy.

Pakatan Rakyat leaders and former participants have also claimed that the courses were racist in nature and emphasised the idea of the supremacy and superiority of one particular race.

It was also reported that former BTN participants revealed that they were not allowed to take along their mobile phones and other electronic media gadgets while course notes were not allowed to be taken out of the lecture hall.

The latest malicious and malevolent remarks on the Chinese and Indian communities by the Federal Territory BTN deputy director has again highlighted the fact the BTN is in fact an indoctrination tool to instil and reinforce a racial supremacist agenda, which is, for all purposes and intend, an antithesis to Najib’s OneMalaysia ideal.

The predictable danger of such an indoctrination scheme causing untold harm to the already very frail and fragile multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-cultural and mulit-lingual Malaysian society is very real. It can even result in a veritable racial explosion, if not checked, curbed and controlled.

For the most part, those participating in the BTN courses consist of pre-university students, government scholarship students, civil service recruits, and civil servants sent for refresher courses.

With the BTN leadership comprising people with mentality like the Federal Territory deputy director, instead of seeking to instil the spirit of patriotism and love for the country, and promoting racial equality, justice, harmony and peaceful co-existence, the BTN is an utterly destructive agency which should be closed for good.

Najib has told the world leaders at the United Nations: “We must choose moderation over extremism. We must choose negotiations over confrontation. We must choose to work together and not against each other. And we must give this effort utmost priority for time is not on our side.”

If that is what the Prime Minister sincerely believes in and wants to happen, he must show the world by example that he practises what he preaches in his own country.

Then, among his first actions should be the dismantling of the BTN, and the taking of disciplinary action against the racist civil servants, such as the Federal Territory BTN deputy director and the two school principals who cynically and contemptuously run down the non-Malay students in their schools. The actions should include sacking these people, and charging them for sedition.

In the case of the Johor principal who liken her Indian students to dogs, and told them and the Chinese students to go back to India and China, it has been more than two and a half months since the incident was exposed, yet no action has been taken against her. The most ridiculous and stupid statement issued by the federal government is that the Education Minister has no power to act on the case.

Najib also must act fast to rein in and restrain those political racial rousers in his own party Umno who are playing the communal card, causing the racial temperature and tension to rise with their irresponsible blazing stirring of sensitive issues.

He should also put a stop to all the fierce and destructive racial attacks propagated in the media owned by his party. The series of communal onslaughts on the human, fundamental and constitutional rights of the people must be made to cease immediately.

Until our Prime Minister acts on these matters, his speech at the United Nations General Assembly will just be sounds from an empty gong, with no substantial and essential value. - Sinchew